Fidbloke

In Britain, we invented our place names for the sole purpose of confusing foreigners.!

Warwick and Leicester being other examples..


I've always pronounced MAFAC as it is written. I wouldn't say it as 'May-fac'. It seems a long-winded way of getting the word out...

ironwood

If you find any MAFAC Raids, toss them my way.

verktyg 

The city of Worcester in Massachusetts was founded in 1722. It was named after Worcester in the UK. The locals there pronounce it wuuss-tar or wiss-ta...

Nearby is the town of Leicester, Massachusetts founded in 1713. The locals pronounce it less-ta...

Then there's Leominster named after Leominster, Herefordshire pronounced lem-an-sta in Mass.

Lastly, Billerica pronounced brick-ah...

"You Say 'Tomato', I say 'Tomato'..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ3fjQa5Hls

The French say "tomate"

verktyg

Chas.

OldsCOOL

Some dip once, some dip twice....

https://youtu.be/RfprRZQxWps

jonwvara 

There's no hard and fast rule for pronouncing French words that have migrated into English. For example, "foyer" is pronounced in English to rhyme with "lawyer," although the French would pronounce it more like "foy-AY." On the other hand, the usual English pronunciation of "motif" (mo-TEEF) is more of less in line with the French pronunciation. There are tons of other examples--it's basically pretty random.

So when people talk about a "correct" pronunciation, in most cases they mean the generally accepted pronunciation. In other words, as long as you're pronouncing the word like everyone around you, you're saying it correctly. (EDIT: As noted in the next post, geographic names are not always pronounced the way you'd expect. Cairo, Illinois, is another good example--it's locally pronounced as "Kay-ro." It's generally agreed that the correct pronunciation of an English-language place name is the way it's pronounced by the inhabitants.)

And since "Mafac" is a word that's of very little interest to anyone but old bike nerds, the correct way to pronounce it in English should logically be way that we agree among ourselves to pronounce it.

I propose that we move this thread in that direction--toward a poll of possible pronunciations with the goal of agreeing on one of them. That pronunciation will then become the "correct" one.

We have the power to set the standard for the English language! Let us wield it wisely.

I humbly vote for "ma-fac," where both of the "a" sounds are proununced as in the word "cat."

USAZorro

Then there's the little community of Buena Vista, in southwest Virginia, which the locals pronounce B'you-nah Viss-tah.

jgscisum 

My well used words and my favorite!

rhm

There's one just like that in Colorado, near Leadville.

ironwood

And there is Fuqua-Varena in North Carolina. Some people were traveling down the East Coast and they saw Fuqua- Varena onthe map and wondered how to pronounce Fuqua. So, when they got to the town they went into a fast food restaurant and asked the girl at the counter "Could you pronounce the name of this place slowly and distinctly?". The girl, with a very straight face said "Bur ger King.".

CV-6 

We called them M*****F*****s back when I was in college.

Darth Lefty 

When the moon hits your eye like a big plastic pie plate

Darth Lefty 

There does seem to be a nice tradition of British people deliberately pronouncing every letter of French words in order to tweak their no-zays.

Some of the differences between US and British English treatment of French words has to come from whethey they went through this filter or came directly from France to the US.

southpawboston

Being that I live 45 minutes from a place called Worcester, I have an in on this one. "Wuss-ter-sheer". Growing up in NY I always thought it had five syllables, "War-sess-ter-shy-er".

southpawboston

There's a street in Somerville named Jacques St. The locals pronounce it "Jakes" St. There was a furniture dealer in my wife's hometown called Mantagna's. It was pronounced "Man-Tag-nuz". The town next over from where I grew up is named after Delhi, India, but it's pronounced "Dell-High".

USAZorro

I grew up in/around Rochester, NY. That was my point, precisely. :-)

Stevensb 

Speaking of place names, how about this one:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Brad

Chombi

I still remember many years ago, I had an argument with a co worker about how "Los Angeles" is really pronounced. I was tryng to tell her that it is a Spanish name and "Angeles" should really be pronounced "Ang-Heh-Less", not the Anglicized "Anjelees"..... She ended our conversation by saying in a huff that she should know better as she lived in Thousand Oaks all her life before she moved to Wisconsin..... She kinda got me there, cause I never lived nowhere near LA at that time or even California...
That's when I kinda figured out tha arguing about correct pronunciation is almost like arguing about religion. It is so regional and cultural that nobody seems to ever be right.....

rmfnla

For wrong I like Houston Street in New York, which they pronounce "house-ton".

For confusing I like Bexar County in Texas; they pronounce it "bay-har" to weed out the non-locals...

Fidbloke

I think it also changes whether you're converting those words to British English, or American English.

For instance; in Britain, we would tend to pronounce foyer as 'foy-ay' like the French. The 'lawyer' sound seems to be more of an American thing to me.

I agree with you vote for 'ma-fac' though. That's how I say it...

Fidbloke

The one I struggle with is 'Campagnolo'.

I sometimes pronounce it with hard consonants all the way through, or I'll say 'how an Italian might say it'. When I do that, I hope that no Italians can overhear me when I strangle it..!

I suspect that's probably the main reason why we tend to call it 'Campag' over here. It neatly solves the problem of how to pronounce that problematic 'g' in the middle...

bike_galpal

pronounce french stuff like you're cajun. it makes the most sense if you think about it enough.

velofinds

British pronunciations of Italian or French words have a special place in my heart:

Cam-pag-nolo (hard 'g')
Bo-tetch-ia (soft 'ch', as in sandwich, Greenwich, Norwich, etc.)

The list goes on

martl

So you think the romans got their latin word from the English?! heck, didn't know that

noglider 

Heh. No, I was thinking the Italian word, universale, is at least as appealing.

noglider 

I Anglify it in a moderate way. I use the English short 'a' as in apple but I pronounce the "gn" in the Italian way, i.e. as the "ny" in "canyon," so Campagnolo comes out as "camp an YO lo." I think I would sound pretentious if I used the proper Italian vowel sound of "a" sounding like "ah."